Thread by @ThyConsigliori

John Minford, #SunTzu 3:3 "Ultimate excellence lies not in winning every battle but in defeating the enemy without ever fighting. The highest form of warfare is to attack strategy itself;"

One of the most famous verses in all of Sun Tzu, you absolutely have to let this one break your brain, maybe even like me, many times, before you can unpack its true meaning. We'll work on the logic, but let's look at an example first.

I'm not sure how we'd do a battle count for the 2016 Republican Primary season, but there is no doubt in my mind that @realDonaldTrump fought against and defeated the strategies of all the other candidates. We could multiply instances, but let's just look at cash money.

Do you remember Low Energy Jeb!? Do you remember his $150,000,000 spend? That was supposed to be an impossible to defeat asset. Can't you just hearTrump saying "Hold my diet coke, while I go make him spend all that money for nothing." What was Trump's strategy?

Obviously, he was able to derisively label Jeb!, who could never label himself, and had no ability to return the favor. More, though, with 14 years of The Apprentice, and an entire lifetime of media study, Trump knew his combat maneuvers would rivet the audience.

And what was Jeb!'s strategy? It's not easy to credit him with much, but clearly, he wanted to define himself as not-just-the-third-Bush. He always wants to be nice, in the center, and appeal to our higher nature. Stuff like that. I'm beginning to yawn just remembering.

Can you feel it though? Trump didn't just defeat Jeb! in battle on stage, he obliterated his strategy. And here's something else that blew my mind, I don't recall anyone crediting Trump with being strategic, back then. Yet, he was the highest Sun Tzu class warrior I'd ever seen.

Let's return to the logic we require. The first thing to unpeel is the tactical vs strategic focus underlying our verse. Winning battles = tactics. Defeating the enemy = strategy. Let's repack that as battles vs wars. Battles are tactical, wars are strategic. Got that?

To tie that down, remember that the two words are relative, not absolute. They're just like small and big. Your Cadillac is a big car, but it turns pretty small in battle with a Mack truck. In a battle, carrying ammunition is tactical, winning is strategic.

Master Sun doesn't use those two words, yet he is absolutely telling us, never get trapped in the tactical, when the entire fight is won or lost strategically. I'll brag that it always amazes my coaching clients when I find them a path to victory via strategy. I love that!

What about ultimate excellence? Don't you love those words? But who talks about things like that? And then he pushes us, "I don't care if you win every battle, you're not there yet, bucko! Ha. Show me some strategy," he says, smiling.

Yep, let that break your brain. You can win every battle you fight and still not achieve ultimate excellence. Oh but we're not done! You want his smile? You have to win without fighting, at all. Wait! What?

Let's tap Reagan for an example.

Reagan absolutely knew that our economy would outperform the USSR's, and knew we could outspend them at arms. He never fought them. He defeated their strategy.

Here's a local challenge. Some of you live in districts where corruption is rampant. There are small political machines throughout our nation. What sort of strategy could be employed to defeat their long arms and deep pockets, their control of weak people in high places?

If we see evil in high places, we must allow Master Sun to challenge us to the highest form of strategic thinking so that we too may defeat our enemies without doing battle, but win by defeating their strategy.

Bonus points will be given for local examples!

To return to previous sections in our #WarForAmerica2020 and #SunTzuForMAGA series, don't forget to head over to @WarForAmerica21.

And also, be sure to purchase John Minford's translation, here:

amazon.com/Art-War-Pengui…